Federal Court Orders Obama IRS: Answer JW on Lerner Emails

Calling all conservative activists, citizens and groups who were silenced and harassed by the Obama Internal Revenue Service in the run-up to the 2012 elections and beyond — you should know that we have moved a few steps closer to holding the Obama administration accountable for its criminal misuse of the federal tax-collecting agency.

We are pleased to announce that Judge Emmet Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted a Judicial Watch request to issue an order requiring the IRS to provide answers by June 12, 2015, on the status of the Lois Lerner emails the IRS had previously declared lost. Judicial Watch raised questions about the IRS’ handling of the missing emails issue in a June 2 court filing, demanding answers about Lois Lerner’s emails, which had been recovered from backup tapes. Judge Sullivan issued the court order on June 4, 2015.

In its June 2 filing, Judicial Watch detailed:

Because the emails recovered from the backup tapes are responsive to [Judicial Watch’s] FOIA request, [Judicial Watch] respectfully requests that the Court order the IRS to submit to the Court a report by June 12, 2015 addressing the status of the emails recovered by TIGTA. The report should include:

(a) clarification as to whether all emails that have been recovered by TIGTA have now been turned over to the IRS for review and processing in response to Plaintiff’s request, the volume of those emails, and the time frame in which the IRS anticipates completing its review and production of responsive emails, and

(b) clarification as to whether the processing is complete for all 1,268 backup tapes to determine what emails are recoverable, and if not, when the processing is expected to be complete.

Two days after Judicial Watch’s filing, Judge Sullivan issued the following order:

The IRS is directed to respond to [Judicial Watch’s] notice by no later than June 12, 2015.

On February 26, 2015, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) officials testified to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that the oversight agency had received 744 backup tapes containing emails sent and received by Lerner. These tapes had been obtained one day after TIGTA requested that the IRS provide any backup tapes that contained records from Lerner’s email account. The IRS subsequently produced 424 additional backup tapes in February 2015. More than 32,000 emails from Lerner’s account were recovered from the initial 744 tapes; Judicial Watch is still seeking information regarding the contents of the additional 424 tapes.

The aforementioned testimony is uncontested that the recovered emails are from the email accounts of IRS officials, including Ms. Lerner, and cover the time period of (Judicial Watch’s) request. The testimony also is unequivocal that the IRS reported publicly that any backup tapes had been recycled and were no longer available without asking its technicians whether the tapes existed. [TIGTA Deputy Inspector General] Camus also testified that hard drives previously reported by the IRS to have been destroyed had not, in fact, been destroyed.

However, the IRS has yet to provide answers to Judicial Watch regarding the content of tapes it turned over to TIGTA, specifically “whether the emails are from all or only a subset of the 1,268 backup tapes located since July 1, 2014,” or whether additional emails remain to be recovered.

As the Obama State Department has argued with respect to Hillary Clinton’s hidden emails, the IRS has now argued that Lerner’s emails are no longer “IRS” records and it has no legal obligation to request them:

Agency counsel responded that the IRS is under no obligation to request copies of the emails recovered by TIGTA because they are allegedly not agency records. The IRS’s position is extraordinary considering that, not only are the backup tapes and emails obviously IRS records, but the Court went to great lengths to address the issue of the “missing” emails, including holding a status conference, ordering a meet and confer before a magistrate judge, and ordering the IRS to submit multiple declarations about its efforts to recover or locate the emails.

We can now say with certainty that the Obama IRS obstructed and lied to a federal judge and to our legal team in an effort to hide the truth about Lerner’s emails. The IRS, including its top political appointees, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen and General Counsel William J. Wilkins, has much to answer for over its contempt of court and of Congress. And the Department of Justice officials enabling this cover-up in court need to be held accountable, as well. The IRS is out of control and Judicial Watch is happy that Judge Sullivan has taken this key step to remind the agency that it is accountable to the rule of law and the American people.

The IRS response is due today. Typically, the Obama administration waits until late in the day, especially on Fridays, to release material that makes it look bad. I’ll report back to you next week on the IRS filing. In the meantime, you may want to ask your congressmen and senators why, for the most part, they sit on their hands on the Obama IRS abuses and cover-up while Judicial Watch does all the hard work.

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